Antenna Architecture of a Nano-Satellite for Radio Astronomy

Recent technological advancements have led to the emergence of a new miniaturized satellite platforms and this opened up the path for a whole new range of applications. The Orbiting Low Frequency Antennas for Radio Astronomy (OLFAR) project is one of these applications, and aims to develop a low-frequency radio telescope for the 0.3 MHz to 30 MHz band. It uses a swarm of 50 or more identical nano-satellites to synthesize a very large aperture to explore the ultra-long electromagnetic (EM) waves in this frequency band. The swarm will act similar to a wireless sensor network (WSN) that samples the cosmic noise, processes the data in a distributed manner, and then sends the data to a base station (BS) for further processing and analysis. The satellites will have a very simple architecture (characteristic of a WSN node) that will focus on three main functionalities: radio observation, data processing, and distribution (inter-satellite and downlink). However, the complexity of the application results in strict requirements for the design of the satellites components, especially for the antenna systems. Starting from OLFAR's requirements and limitations, three separate antenna systems for scientific observation, inter-satellite link (ISL) and data downlink are designed and integrated into a nano-satellite platform.